Hacker News: TonyAlicea10

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Donkey.bas is 45 Years Old – 131 line of Glory"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 21:01:42 +0000

GORILLA.BAS got me into programming decades ago. I made an (admittedly partially vibe coded) homage this year: https://gameswithtony.com/gorillas/

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "As AI eats the web, the internet’s collective memory is disappearing"

TonyAlicea10 — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 11:27:19 +0000

Google switching to hallucinating AI summaries has been to me an absolutely shocking abdication of care for both their users and their own reputation.

It extends beyond search as well. I have had multiple incorrect Gmail summaries that, if I had only read them instead of the actual email, would have resulted in financial harm.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "The Difference Between a Button and a Link"

TonyAlicea10 — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:51:10 +0000

Presentation in what medium? A screen reader? You’re talking the user-agent stylesheet, which is a particular chosen presentation that I can change with my own CSS. I can make a button look like a link.

You’re suggesting aligning to an inherently and deliberately changeable presentation.

The idea is fine, but worry about what an HTML element “looks like” is not a good reason.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "The Difference Between a Button and a Link"

TonyAlicea10 — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:58:37 +0000

> Buttons regularly perform navigations. Clicking a logout button navigates the current page to a logged-out one; clicking a “search” button navigates the current page to the query results.

This seems to conflate appearance with semantics. If an element causes a navigation, I make it a link. Whether it looks like a button is irrelevant, that’s CSS.

I always choose one or the other by intended behavior first, and that always works out great.

That said, I like the idea.

UX-Context Design: The future of UX design and user research?

TonyAlicea10 — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:59:55 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-context-design/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49067746

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:20:22 +0000

All those .BAS files were an education.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 03:02:52 +0000

I did the same in QBasic (and Tandy Color Basic)!

I feel like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books were a sort of precursor to programming for a lot of us. Basic if/then/goto.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "MoonBASIC: A modern BASIC for building 2D and 3D games"

TonyAlicea10 — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 02:10:19 +0000

For me the spark is reinvigorated. I can try ideas before I didn’t have the time for, prototype and test and only pursue what proves to be worth the time.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:58:32 +0000

Same. This was true for so many of us. An open source education.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 09:56:54 +0000

There’s a marked difference in quality depending on context, usage of sub-agents, initial specs, and model-wise a big difference from what Opus would produce and Fable.

I’m not saying I’m hand coding, but saying getting good outputs doesn’t take any technique means your definition of good outputs probably isn’t very refined. And saying it hasn’t taken technique for 4 years is just flat wrong.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "The human-in-the-loop is tired"

TonyAlicea10 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 02:29:21 +0000

Funny I made some very similar points awhile back in a blog post, thinking of it in terms of mode collapse: https://tonyalicea.dev/blog/single-mode-burnout/

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:16:53 +0000

Thank you! I tried to add just a little snazz without changing the core.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 21:18:56 +0000

I've made two updates: the wind and round text should be more legible with a slightly transparent background under it. The camera is less whiplash-y and pauses for a moment after the banana hit if it's zoomed out and the zoom in is a bit slower.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 21:07:49 +0000

I understand, I'm not going for accuracy, just suggestion. For someone like you it won't feel right, I totally get it.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 20:59:24 +0000

Nope, haven't changed it! I think it's an aesthetic preference thing.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 20:23:04 +0000

I think the first one for me was The Oregon Trail followed shortly by QBasic Gorillas and Nibbles. It was my first step in coding beyond Turtle Graphics on an Apple from even earlier in childhood.

Opening up the QBasic source code was eye opening for me: that computers weren't the realm of hackers typing incomprehensible text on TV and swapping floppy disks, but something that could start to make sense. My TRS-80 came next, and, for me, the rest was history.

Good memories. I wonder what the memories will be for kids right now in the age of LLMs.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 19:53:40 +0000

Code-wise, mostly LLM. I gave it the original QBasic source code so that's not mine either.

This experiment was a guidance experiment for me with Fable. Heavy spec and planning architecturally and UX, and strictly no JS frameworks or dependencies.

I do these kind of experiments with new models, and Fable has been the most successful so far for capturing the intended UX and feel per spec.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 18:54:30 +0000

Yes! Fun things that either you’d never have taken the time to build otherwise, or recreations of things that you know well.

Things where you know how they’re supposed to make you feel (like games from childhood), and getting that experience match is an exercise.

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 18:48:37 +0000

I did let the LLM handle the mouse and touch aiming for v1. That’s an experiment as I prefer typing in the boxes or using arrow keys.

I think it needs tweaking to let you hone in a value better. What are you thinking?

New comment by TonyAlicea10 in "Show HN: QBasic Gorillas (Repeeled)"

TonyAlicea10 — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 17:05:04 +0000

Fair. This is a direct port in some areas of the 1991 game, which strategically was more try something then dial it in. I’ll ponder. It’s almost arcade vs simulation in some ways.

That is, if you can calculate it too easily then the first player always has a huge advantage.